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Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers Of The E-Personality (2011)

by Elias Aboujaoude(Favorite Author)

3.45 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0393070646 (ISBN13: 9780393070644)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

W. W. Norton & Company

review 1: It's not that I didn't like this book, just that some information in here wasn't really ground-breakingly new, and having read this some time after publication, some of the information presented is already outdated. Having said that, this book did contain some interesting tidbits on Facebook's policies and Google's limited privacy policy. Perhaps the point driven home the most, was the fact that once something is out there in cyberspace, it can never, ever be taken back, and may come to haunt you. Being of the generation which was introduced to the Internet as an adult, there were no warnings about privacy concerns, and I, like many others have a digital footprint far greater than I ever intended. If this book is somewhat alarmist about the internet and its negative conseq... moreuences, I'm okay with it. Better to give us pause than to sing praises, since we seem far too aware of the many positive changes having access to the worldwide web has brought us, with nary a thought to its inherent dangers.
review 2: If you're already convinced the internet will lead to the downfall of civilization, this book is for you. If you're a fan of the outdated theories of Freud, read on. But if you want a good, scientifically-based work that examines the impact of our online lives, look elsewhere.This book is full of theories posited, but never supported, by the author. By far, the most common word found in this book is "may," as in "the Internet MAY cause this" or "that MAY be a result of time spent online." The author forgets the tenet that "correlation does not mean causation" and doesn't seem to be interested in utilizing the regression analyses that he so pithily describes at one point to determine any connections between variables.This work can best be summed up by a personal story shared at the end, where the author happens to find out that a seemingly-wonderful superior's email password is "doctorbitch." The author goes on to wonder at length in what ways the superior might reflect this moniker; however, in the end, there is no concrete evidence to support the notion that the author's suppositions are founded and the reader is left with a feeling of vague dissatisfaction. less

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